1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to equipment assignment verification systems and, more particularly, to the verification of the assignments of telephone cable pairs to central office switching equipment locations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In modern telephone central offices it has become common to utilize digital computers and mass storage techniques to maintain a continuously updated record of the assignment of telephone cable pairs to specific locations on the central office equipment. Such records aid in the rapid and error-free reassignment of such facilities in response to changes in subscriber service or changes in central office equipment. One such computer-based system is described in "Computer System for Mainframe Operations (COSMOS)" by B. B. Bittner, published in 1976 International Conference on Communications, June 14-16, Philadelphia, Pa., pp. 13-20-13-22.
In order to install such a computer-based system, it is necessary to convert the manually recorded and indexed assignments into digital signals suitable for storage in a digital mass storage medium such as a magnetic disk file. This conversion process is slow, tedious and subject to considerable human error, resulting in computer records which cannot be readily used. It is therefore important to verify the pair-equipment assignments prior to actually utilizing the computer-based system.
In the prior art systems this cable pair-line equipment (or billing telephone number) verification process was accomplished by attaching a test set to the cable pair appearances, going off-hook, waiting for a dial tone response and then dialing up a special access code which connected the cable pair to a test trunk. This test trunk is then used to access the automatic number identification equipment or another test frame. The line billing telephone number and/or line equipment number is pulsed forward to the test trunk by the number identification unit or test frame in the central office. Since the number of the cable pair accessed is already known (by its physical position), the cable pair-equipment and/or billing telephone number relationship is established.
The verification scheme described above, even when accomplished by automatic dialing techniques, requires a considerable amount of time to verify each assignment. In large central offices this verification process therefore extends over a considerable period, delaying the introduction of the computer-based control system.